Evolutionism and North America's archaeological record

Abstract

The archaeological record of North America has long been a laboratory for evolutionary studies. Beginning in the late nineteenth century, culture historians would regularly turn to evolutionism as a source of archaeological explanations. Sometimes the explanations were broadly Darwinian in nature, with reference to processes such as selection and genetic transmission, and other times they were based more on the evolutionism of the classic nineteenth-century culture theorists. The archaeological literature of the closing decades of the twentieth century and beyond suggests a heightened interest in employing Darwinian theory. No one, however, has suggested that Darwinism can solve all of archaeology's problems. Rather, advocates have pointed out that it might solve some of archaeology's historical – read evolutionary – problems. Despite the interest shown thus far, evolutionary archaeology needs to move beyond a narrow reading of Darwinism and become a more inclusive approach. Examples from North America underscore the point that studies of cultural transmission and human behavior are important components of an evolutionary archaeology.